Now that Blu-ray manufacturers don’t have a format war to contend with,
they can focus on giving us players that take advantage of Blu-ray’s
full technological potential. One of the main criticisms of the format
thus far is that the first crop of players didn’t support interactive
features like picture-in-picture playback and Internet connectivity
(features that we got with early-generation HD DVD players, I might
add).

These initial players – called Profile 1.0 players – lack both
the internal hardware to support PIP and the Ethernet port to connect
to the Internet, so the omissions can’t be fixed with a software
upgrade. If you purchased a Blu-ray player before November of last
year, you’ll need to upgrade if you want to access all the bonus
content that could appear on future Blu-ray releases. Are you now
eyeing that $1,000 first-generation Blu-ray player in your gear rack
with a bit more cynicism? I’d like to think that those people who can
afford a $1,000 player wouldn’t think twice about the cost of an
upgrade; I could be wrong.

If 2008 is the year you plan to go “Blu,” you’ll find better-equipped
models across the board, but you still aren’t guaranteed the complete
package. As of November 1, 2007, all Blu-ray players are required to be
Profile 1.1, which means they must include the secondary audio and
video decoders needed to watch PIP commentaries and features. However,
manufacturers aren’t yet required to support the BD-Live function that
lets you access Internet features via an Ethernet port; that’s part of
the Profile 2.0 spec. It’s disappointing that many manufacturers have
opted not to include BD-Live in this year’s models, but props to those
companies that have voluntarily chosen to support the feature in their
2008 players. Sony, Panasonic and Daewoo (yeah, Daewoo) have announced
plans to release BD-Live players this year, with Panasonic’s model
scheduled to arrive first, in May. Samsung has announced that its
BD-P1500, slated for a June release, will be BD-Live-ready, which means
it has an Ethernet port but won’t support BD-Live at its initial launch
(the needed firmware upgrade is supposed to come before year’s end).
Sony will also release a BD-Live-ready player this summer. Sharp
recently pushed back the release of its BD-HP50U from April to October;
I’m hoping the company has had a change of heart and decided to add
BD-Live or at least an Ethernet port to the player. Time will tell.

Of course, you don’t have to wait to get full functionality … if you’re
willing to embrace a gaming console as your Blu-ray source. The
PlayStation 3 has always had the necessary hardware and Ethernet port
for PIP and BD-Live, but the features needed to be enabled via a
firmware upgrade. The Profile 1.1 upgrade came late last year, and the
much-anticipated Profile 2.0 upgrade arrived last month, making the
PlayStation 3 the only Profile 2.0 player currently on the market. In
other PlayStation 3 news, Sony is also adding DTS-HD Master Audio
decoding to the console via an April firmware upgrade.

Now, I’m not insisting that Profile 2.0 players are the only ones worth
buying. It may be difficult for hardcore Blu-ray devotees to believe,
but some people really don’t care that much about bonus content. Some
don’t judge a disc by its extras and may never watch a single
featurette or deleted scene. I myself am not all that interested in
Web-enabled features, but I do like the idea of picture-in-picture
commentary, at least when it involves my favorite directors and actors,
so a Profile 1.1 player suits me just fine. Even an older Profile 1.0
player meets the needs of the movie lover who cares only about video
and audio quality – although the Profile 1.1 players I’ve encountered
have faster response times and are better able to handle BD-Java menus,
which makes for a more satisfying user experience. Audiophiles probably
care more about the player’s ability to decode or pass the bitstream of
Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD soundtracks than they do about the inclusion of
an Ethernet port. In a perfect world, though, we wouldn’t have to make
such distinctions, as every Blu-ray player would have all of the
features and functionality we want. Sadly, that world is still a ways
off.